Ah, the bins of the Great Record Store of History (the mythological store where EVERY album ever made is cataloged and available) are lined with fine albums that tanked sales-wise. In a world where Quality is measured by Marketplace Success, where people actually say things like, "well, if s/he/they were any good, I woulda heard o’ them," many a fine platter gets lost in the shuffle. The reasons are fairly mundane: the record company under-promotes them (if at all); the artist is either ahead of or behind "the times," victimized by the fickle winds of prevailing fashion, crafting the right album at the wrong time; the artists refusal to tour or Play The Record-Biz Game; making music with a less- or un-commercial orientation. Tanz! by Dave Tarras and the Musiker Brothers from 1955 is one such primo example - superb music, perhaps the Pet Sounds of Klezmer, with its individualistic conjoining of soulful Yiddish-rooted Klezmer sounds with sophisticated, jazz-inspired arrangements. (For the unfamiliar, the "K" word refers to an early American "fusion" music: East European rooted Jewish/Yiddish folk melodies and rhythms combined with New World jazz elements.) Alas, the conformist 50s era was no time for such an album - the popularity of Klezmer was on the wane and jazz guys like Stan Kenton were considered by many hep cats to be rather "far out." Which in retrospect is a darn shame - though I’m hardly an expert, the all-instrumental Tanz! is one of the best, most consistently fine Klezmer discs I’ve yet heard. In many ways, this album sounds utterly contemporary, stacking up quite favorably to recorded offerings by contempo klez bands such as Naftule’s Dream, Burton Greene’s Klezmokum and The Klezmatics. Tarras (more trad) and Sam Musiker (more jazz) are incredible clarinetists, where fantastic technique is imbued with the passionate "cry" of Klezmer, and like the best wind players, often have a warm "vocal" element in their presentation (sometimes sounding like speaking-in-tongues). Far from being difficult, the arrangements (of originals, w/ a few trad tunes) for reeds, trumpet, accordion, bass and drums are fresh and inventive, achieving a dandy balance of brisk, up-tempo dance-oriented tunes with quieter, poignant, elegant passages - never obvious, corny or overly sentimental. And the remastered sound: ooh la la! If Duke Ellington or George Russell ever took on the Klezmer idiom, I doubt they’d’ve done much better than this. [Translation: Tanz = Dance.... and how!]